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Dessert

Fruit Loaf

A loaf of fruit cake made with bread sponge, molasses, raisins, currants, spices, and butter.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 14 ingredients
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Why it works: Bread and butter are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 27,232 recipes. Both carry delta-decalactone, which smells sweet, creamy. The science ↓

Fruit Loaf

Ingredients

Directions

The book gives no oven temperature. The 350°F (175°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point. The book gives no cooking times either; the times in the steps were added in transcription, so check for doneness rather than trusting the clock.

Prepare

  1. Preheat your oven to 350°F (175°C).

Make the batter

  1. Beat the eggs, butter, and brown sugar together until well combined.

  2. Add the bread sponge, molasses, sweet milk, raisins, currants, lemon peel, citron peel, cinnamon, cloves, and allspice.

  3. Mix in enough flour to achieve a stiff batter, similar to an ordinary fruit cake.

Bake

  1. Pour the mixture into a greased loaf pan.

  2. Bake for about 1 hour or until a toothpick comes out clean.

Recipe from a historical cookbook (Internet Archive).

Transcribed from a scanned cookbook and modernised for today's kitchens. Where the book gave no heat or time, or said "a moderate oven", the temperatures and times here may be modern equivalents rather than the book's own figures.

Explore the science

The flavor team

The pairs that carry this dish. Each one is judged two ways: how much their aromas overlap, and how often cooks already put them together.

  1. Bread + buttertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together27,232 recipes

    Shared aroma: delta-decalactone (sweet, creamy).

  2. Butter + milktop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

    Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).

  3. Raisin + curranttop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together6,180 recipes

    Shared aroma: gamma-nonanolactone (coconut, creamy).

  4. Bread + milktop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together11,466 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-undecenal (sweet).

  5. Sugar + molassestop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together9,225 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs

What each ingredient does

Bread sponge
Ferments and lightens the batter, giving the loaf a risen, tender crumb.
Eggs
Bind the batter and add structure as the loaf sets in the oven.
Butter
Adds richness and a tender texture to the crumb.
Brown sugar
Sweetens the loaf and helps it brown while baking.
Molasses
Adds moisture, dark colour and a deep, rich sweetness.
Flour
Provides the structure that holds the stiff batter and fruit together.

The step that matters

Mix in enough flour to achieve a stiff batter. Flour sets the structure of the loaf. Too little leaves it wet and collapsing, while too much makes it dense and dry, so the batter should be stiff but still mixable.

Swap the lemon

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (bread, sugar, molasses, butter, milk, raisin, currant):

  1. Figfits better
  2. Vanillafits better
  3. Applefits better
  4. Lemonthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against bread, sugar, molasses, butter, milk, raisin, currant. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes.

“What each ingredient does” and “The step that matters” were written by Claude from this recipe’s own method and reviewed in samples by CompKitchen.

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